Scraps and Snippets ~ Review of The Happy Herbivore Cookbook and a Silly Story...

Since I've got a stack of cookbooks to review and I announced it yesterday (gotta love the accountability). And, well, I found two more books at the library. I had to return the Happy Herbivore and, well, they enticed me.

But. For dinner last night, and for kicks, and next day lunches, and just because I made the following recipes from The Happy Herbivore.

Oatmeal Cookies

Fruity Oatmeal Bars

Chicken Style Seitan -- (which required these as well No-Chicken Broth Powder Poultry Seasoning Mix)

My assessment of the book.

Lindsay Nixon's Happy Herbivore cookbook opens with an explanation of why and what Vegan looks like, what to have on hand to prepare Vegan meals and tips and hints. Had I been just starting out as a Vegan I would have very much devoured this section, and the very end of the book that is simply two pages that give details on what and how to make substitutions in standard recipes. After almost a year of the Vegan learning curve, this is less important to me.

As for the recipes. The Fruity Oatmeal bars are exactly as she said they'd be. Cereal bar taste and texture just like a Nutri-Grain type bar. Very tasty. I'll definitely make these again. There was no added fat as promised in the secondary title of the book either. Same scenario on the Oatmeal Cookies. Good texture, a soft cookie that is chewy and flavorful. Again, no added fat. One step in the directions caused me pause and I did not follow it. She suggested placing part of the batter/dough on parchment paper and laying it carefully upside down over the jam layer. I chose the lazy way out and allowed a few holes for the jam to peek through after plopping and spreading.

I love the No-Chicken Broth Powder. It makes quite a bit, a cup and a half or so. It will work in other recipes and will be a nice staple for my kitchen. The poultry seasoning was a mix of several spices, and again, will be an addition to my pantry. The Chicken-Style Seitan was chicken-like. Nice flavor, and decent texture. It's still Seitan and has that texture so it won't fool omnivores. It was a little time consuming so I'd make a double batch next time and try freezing it for the future or keep it on it's extra liquid/gravy in the fridge for a few days. The making was easy, but it required almost an hour to simmer and half hour to bake. Most homemade Seitan is involved, though, so this was not unexpected. There is a recipe on the web that I like slightly better that will be my go to "chicken" sub recipe but I believe I'll add the No-Chicken Broth Powder to it.

The other recipes I'd like to try are:

Blue Corn Chickpea Tacos

Mushroom Burgers

Torkey (Tofu Turkey)

Spicy Sausage

Frittata

Baked Shells and Cheese (which requires the Cheddar Cheesy Sauce)

Veggie, Bean, &Quinoa Croquettes

Baked Beans

Baked Onion Rings

Chili-Lime Corn Chips

Ranch Dip

Vegan Worcestershire Sauce

Mayo

Sour Cream

Nacho Cheese Sauce

Brown Rice Milk

Gravy (three different ones)

Cinnamon Buns

Maple Cornbread Biscuits

Gingerbread Mini-Loaves

Scones

Pumpkin Cheesecake

All of these recipes are not unique to The Happy Herbivore Cookbook. Many are on blogs. However, I'm at the point where I'm looking for the perfect go-to recipes to replace family favorites and/or for holiday baking and entertaining.

Depending on what you are looking for this could be THE cookbook for you. The recipes are basic and a chef's hat is not a required tool to use it in your kitchen. An experienced Vegan who has been playing around with recipes for a long time may not find as many keepers as a new Vegan would.

And after #3 tried to start the newest wave to change the world wide web with the antidote to planking...boxing...she got a wild hair to do some more Vegan baking. I believe she's catching the bug. Well, not really, she keeps begging for meat and whining for cheese. But she's catching the whole baking bug.

Scraps and Snippets ~ Coming Soon to a Review Corner Near You...

I mentioned I had ten cookbooks I was needing to review. You may have thought I was kidding. I was not. 

Cookbooks I'm currently cooking, or thinking about cooking, from and plan to review ASAP.  Really. And there are more I want to cook from, too. I'm developing a cookbook problem. I may need an intervention.

 Appetite for Reduction. Recently found it's way onto my shelves. Have barely cracked the cover. But. I want to dig in...literally and figuratively.

The Complete Guide Vegan Food Substitutions is one of the first Vegan cookbooks I bought. I love the pictures of the animals. Too cute. I've tried four recipes so far. They have not been my favorite of their types. But I think this little guy will be on my shelf forever. There are hints and tips and substitution ideas galore. Kind of like my Betty Crocker. She sits there idle 80% of the time. But when you need that one basic recipe, she's there, holding the secrets of home cooking, ya know?

 The Happy Herbivore. Another cookbook I borrowed from the library. I'm trying three recipes tomorrow. Poultry Seasoning Mix, No-Chicken Broth powder, and Chicken Style Seitan. The book has to go back. I'm undecided on the keeper status and whether or not I'll purchase it...but I'm going to give it the old college try.

Vegan on the Cheap...who doesn't love that? I shelled out some Christmas gift money to buy this bad boy.

One of my Christmas gifts, Spork Fed, is on my hit list. These sisters look so cute. And the food on the cover looks so tasty. I page through it when I'm tired and multitasking while watching a show. It's going to visit the work bench soon. Very soon.  

 Had a gift card and bought this bad boy with it. Quick Fix Vegan appeals to me on so many levels.

 Veganomicon. Another checked out at the library. Then went ahead and bought it. The Chickpea cutlet recipe is worth the price. It's on her website, but there is something about the cookbook. Oh. Biscotti? Made that, tasty. Two recipes that make it a keeper.

 Vegan Brunch. I checked it out from the library. How creative and different could brunch recipes be? I thought. But. Then I looked through it. Hmmmmm. Interesting and tasty ideas. Many must tries. So then I found it on sale. And it lives with me.

Another Fork in the Trail. Looked through it, marked forty or so recipes. Finally have a dehydrator. There is some serious work involved in these to make them for camping/backpacking/hiking...but I want to. Real bad.

Blissful Bites is a cookbook I received for review. I've made the BBQ sauce which was delicious. I'm not ready to go whole "hog" (excuse the non-Veg terminology).

Scraps and Snippets ~ Food Fun

Toad-boy was born on St. Patrick's day. We threw a birthday party Friday night to celebrate the event.

& and I put together the following menu. Of the fourteen in attendance all but the three of us are Vegans. I used my "hamburger crumbles" and vegan garlic mashed potato/cauliflower topping to throw together a shepherd's pie, mixing the "hamburger crumbles" with a bit of flour, a sauteed onion and some vegetable broth. I sprinkled nutritional yeast and paprika on top and it was...okay. A few went back for seconds, but it was just okay.

I made my Asian Cranberry Cabbage Slaw. That one has been tried and true. And added a little St Patrick's Cabbage with a twist.

The biggest, hands down hit of the night wasn't my recipe at all. It will become a favorite in my repertoire. If you love buffalo wings....you gotta make this. SO GOOD. (cauliflower version) My omnivore, buffalo chicken wing fan daughter-in-law loved it. Not just politely liked it, but asked for the recipe. A first since we went Vegan. She's a little trooper and puts up with all our weirdness, but this is a banner moment. She even looked at Mother. (that was the evening's entertainment.) It was a good night. Ha. Ha.

& made chocolate mint cupcakes. I thought they were really tasty, she's not a fan. And then she made a key lime parfait with homemade graham crackers. Again she wasn't a super fan. But the rest of us were impressed. The graham crackers are another keeper though. YUMMY.

Then, after a huge shopping trip to replenish food supplies on Saturday, #3 made her first Vegan cupcakes. So delicious. She did a great job...and has started a Vegan Food board on her Pinterest page.

Before grocery shopping I made a pizza. Spread Hummus (made from Peas and Thank You cookbook) with an addition of cilantro and chiles (YUM)) on the crust, covered that with tomato sauce, spinach, calamata olives and some Daiya. Nice flavor combo.

Overall, a food-fun filled weekend. And yours?

Scribbles and Scrambles ~ Law Lesson #3

Pre Citizen's Police Academy... I'll just mention what I think I'll learn tonight. We will be visited by the chaplains. (Probably a tearjerker story or two.) And, proof of police officer senses of humor...S.W.I.N.E. this is a self-appointed acronym regarding a special law enforcement task force. Can't wait to have my brain filled with fascinating law enforcement facts. And now it's time to head off to see how the "boys" in blue save the world.

I'll do the update in the morning.

Update:

These are a few of the things I learned last night.

Prostitution is alive and not what we think it is. The Vice detective shared some truly horrific stories of young women brainwashed, kept in near kidnap type situations, tattooed with the pimp's brand, and totally at his mercy, of which he has none. The detective shared because girls develop at an earlier age he's aware of even nine year olds who have begun to be ushered into that life. (Life?) (And this happens in the midwest?) A big case recently involved a man who actually played for the NBA and then somehow made a career change into becoming a pimp. One of his girls was arrested, and later said she was so grateful she was, as they had been basically keeping her and her baby hostage. My right to be ignorant of some of the awfulness in my back yard is at the expense of men and women who want to keep the world a better place.

Drugs. This task force, except for the salary of the officers involved, is completely funded by seizures and shared seizures. Cars, money etc. When drugs are involved a car and cash can be seized along with the drugs. If the person who owns the car or cash can provide a paper trail, then it's all good, the property is not seized. But if they can't, the property is no longer theirs. What's more. if there is a drug bust of significance, a street value is assigned to the drugs, the drugs are of course taken off the streets, destroyed etc. But the street value (because they were going to sell them) is provided to the IRS. The drug "owner" now has to pay tax on those drugs. One guy in my class got a little hot under the collar about that...uhhh, Dude, how many thousands of dollars have they dealt tax free? Before getting caught? Not sure if he got it. Anyhoo, that is a consequence I never even considered an option. It is true that the task force wants to get the big suppliers and will use citizen informants (often those they've busted who will roll.) The awful pictures of homes and the stories of kids living in those homes was heartbreaking.

It was good that this heavy, heavy presentation was followed with the chaplains. One of them, while some of the haunting stories were still fresh in our minds made a comment along the lines of. "We are there to listen to any officer who needs to talk. We ride with them, get called into some hard situations. But we see stuff that is traumatizing once a month, every couple of months. These officers see this stuff every day. And what they see they don't want to take home. Their homes are where their families are, the ones they are trying to protect along with the rest of the citizens in our city. Taking the ugliness of the street into their homes is not an option for them. We can be there while they unload horror, just speaking it helps, and we can pray for them."

Wow. Then he went on to say that not only that, when people have a cop encounter they are more prone to spit, curse them out, yell and lie than show any level of kindness.

& and I were really impacted by the picture he painted. Not that we spit at cops. Hardly. Nor do we have many official encounters. Ha Ha. But to really get a glimpse into their lives is sobering. We talked all the way home. Every one of the ten or so officers we've encountered in this class has been a really neat guy. They have a sense of humor, they are doing their job to protect people who don't realize it, because they feel compelled to protect. They are thoughtful, intelligent, respectful men. But there is a protective, professional edge to each of them that would intimidate if he was standing at my window asking for license and registration or at my door with a complaint. How much of that edge is because they've learned the hard way that yelling and lying would be the likely response to their questions?

If you have a police officer encounter today, tell the truth, and be kind.

Scribbles and Scrambles ~ Ramblin, Ramblin, Ramblin that Eventually Gets to a Point...

What to post? What to post? I think I understand the creative focuses bloggers adopt. It helps categorize thoughts into smaller sub-themes. You know, the Linkys and the the Theme of the day...like the underwear that's cutesy and different for every day of the week. Today is rambling panty day in my house. I'm not sure what to post so I'll write until something jumps out at me.


I have literally, (shout out to Parks and Rec's very own Chris) ten Vegan cookbooks I could review. Could, but not quite... I like to try a few recipes before giving a review, ya know? 

& and I did some cooking yesterday. Happy Healthy Life's Sweet potato burgers, my "hamburger" crumbles, my buns, Katie's graham crackers. We ate up the doctored Pinterest Salsa  (the changes we made...two cans of tomatoes and one can of diced chilis vs one can of tomatoes, one can of Rotels and the jalapeno called for, easier, as tasty and a little cheaper) that has taken over the web. And finally,  almost killed off my Orange You Glad We're Together Bars.


I swished salt water. Glad the tooth is gone. It was really bugging me. Interesting how that happens. You just get used to life and deal and bear up under it. And one morning you wake up and face a change and realize that you now have a different perspective. This, of course, can be a negative change like a diagnosis or shock or loss. Or, a realization that the hard work you've put into something is paying off, or that you are a better person than you were a year ago.


You might, one day be single, the next a couple. Or a couple and then shockingly a single. Healthy you think until those words rock your world, or hearing that the discipline in exercising or eating has changed a dire fact into a different reality. Or maybe you use Jesus as a curse word on Tuesday and on Thursday you meet Him and change your mind. A relative is hospitalized and seems to have nine lives where a neighbor might take one last trip to the grocery store and never return home thanks to a texting driver. 


A toothache could maybe even trigger a deep vein of thought on a blog that has it's share of the ridiculous. 


I hope your day is rich with blessings and hope and promise.

Scribbles and Scrambles ~ Horse Senses

I'm sure none of you wants the details of my tooth removal procedure. (Nor do you want a picture.)

Let's just say a) really don't want to do that again anytime soon. b) it wasn't as bad as my adrenalin and panicky mind told me it would be. c) I had a strange compulsion to bring it home with me. d) I'm glad it's gone.

But while I was dreading the upcoming tooth extraction at work yesterday we started talking about horses.

Honestly, I don't know how the subject came up. But, one of my co-workers and I were friends in high school. Weird. Anyhoo. We began reminiscing. When we were 16 or 17 she spent the night one night and we decided to go horseback riding. First problem, one horse between the two of us. Ha, that's no problem. We'd share a horse. Second problem, said horse liked to hold it's breath when being saddled. Ha. Patience and intelligence, we'd wait the horse out and keep tightening the-thing-on-the-saddle-that-holds-the-saddle-to-the-horse-that-I-used-to-know-what-it-was-called-thingy...cinch maybe?

Problems solved, we set out on the dusty trail and met up with our friend and her horse. A few miles from home we also met up with some boy classmates, also on their horses. Did I mention we were 16 and 17? The boys said, "Hey, wanna race?"

I also mentioned I possessed a fair amount of intelligence, my friend, who was glued to my back in a death grip, and I, in unison, said, "No WAY!" Our other friend had a crush on one of the boys. So. Three horses began an epic race, thundering away.

Did I ever mention that I have very little experience with horse whispering? I believe a horse, no matter how mild and tame, will see me and immediately sense the need to either stomp me, blow snot on me, kick or throw me, or bite me...(in case you are wondering, I've experienced all of the above, some more so than others). This horse happened to have a bit of a naughty streak. Not a good combination. The horse wanted to race. And race it did.

As we tore, at full canter, miles from home, on the gravel road, pulling with all our clueless girl might the saddle began to slip.

Trust me, this is worse than getting a tooth pulled. A few seconds of that day are burned forever in my mind. The slow crawl, the pounding hooves, breathing, screaming awareness that the ground grew closer and closer and closer.

The impact was probably less horrific than the impending promise of impact. We each probably did two or three endos. I remember lying on the road (yes, a road, where cars drive) aware of every square inch of my skin and all of my bones, doing a quick assessment of life. A voice, mine or hers who knows, said something along the lines of "Are we alive?"

Then we gingerly stood. Did I mention that we were at least two hilly miles from home? Limping, we set out. The horse, gaining it's freedom from our oppression was home, waiting, patiently eating grass, saddle upside down around it's belly. Our rotten friend, who knows.

We took turns washing gravel out of our hair and counting gravel burns upon our bodies.

And, that, my friends is why I prefer time in a dentist chair to time in a saddle.

By the way. Our co-worker of five years laughed until she cried yesterday when we ping-ponged the story. Never seen her laugh so hard. Then she told me to have a nice dentist visit.

Scraps and Snippets ~ My First Craft Tutorial ~ Super Green Reusable Totes

I told y'all that I made some Christmas gifts for gifts this year. I posted pictures of the ones that & did and, finally, I'll post my tutorial. Ha. Ha. I use the term tutorial lightly and with trepidation.

Here's the scoop in a nutshell. I love reusable totes but not that most are:

a) a cheapo fabric type composite that falls apart on washing or 

b) that they are nice heavy plastic but lined with a fuzzy fabric liner. When you put produce in them they get nasty.

So. I had some clothes I needed to get rid of and fabric scraps to use up and decided to be really green and make my own tote. And since I liked it so much. And since it could be washed like crazy, I decided to make some for others.

I took a 5 X 7 photo frame and coordinating fabrics I liked (or clothing to be recycled). I cut out eight 5 X 7 rectangles for each bag using the photo frame as a guide. Don't worry about perfect cutting. Good enough is good enough. This is rustic.

Next...I took two of the rectangles and put my favorite fabric on top, then the less loved fabric in back and put the two backs together, the two fronts facing out, back to back. I sewed all four pieces together with one seam on the short ends. Then I opened it up, flattened out the seam and zigzagged both sides (separately) of the seam to the long piece. (If you want to trim the pieces before zigzagging you can, but they'll fray when washed and you can clean up the fray then if you'd rather.) And since the seams will all be on the outside...which adds to the beauty of it...as in it won't be perfect. I didn't have to try to make it perfect. It's rustic. Yay.

I did that for another four pieces of fabric. Then. I took the two long pieces of sewn together fabric, picked one for for the top,  put the two long pieces back to back (smooth side together) and sewed those together the long way so I ended up with one large rectangle made out of four rectangular sections. Seams all on the outside.  Then I zigzagged the long seam down (both sides) on the front of my piece.

I repeated this with the back. I picked my front or back preference and whether I wanted the bag to be "landscape" or "portrait". I cut sides and the handle out of the fabric chunks, jean legs, or shirt sleeves. I found that 35 to 44 inches was what worked

best. I like a longer handle. ( I cut a chunk of fabric about 4 inches wide across the store folded fabric piece). I made some with a jean leg or two sleeves. I added seams if I had to piece one together and zig zagged the raw ends down as needed.

The sides are sewn onto the front and back panels, raw seams out like the panels. Zig zagging as the panels are except I zig zagged the seam together rather than flat. I sewed the handle/side pieces differently on each bag. I tied one together at the top of the bag. I sewed a few into a big loop and left a seam at different locations on the handle. Others I started at one bottom corner of the bag and ended at the other, overlapping and sewing it.

For fun I sewed pockets of contrast fabric bits onto the bags. I even sewed a cell phone pocket into the base of the handle when I overlapped the handle fabric.

I also made aprons. Using six rectangles. And I used ribbon for the tie. I used about a yard or so. (My tall, thin friend got a six vertical (portrait) panel apron. For my tiny friends I used four horizontal panels (landscape).)

After you sew them up, toss them into the washer and dryer. They will fray. You can trim the seams and gift them. I have enjoyed seeing them show up and seeing them being used various ways by the recipients.

I did use an 8 X 10 frame for one and it was huge. A great overnight bag size. The 5 X 7 carries a lot of stuff. A big reusable tote. A 4 X 6 would be a decent purse size. I chose the landscape over portrait orientation for all of these but if you want pursier you might want to consider landscape.